WBBM 780’s Bernie Tafoya

The store opened at its current location in 1957, after the first store was torn down to make way for the Dan Ryan Expressway.

Zweifel said he has to close the store, because he continues to lose money. He said the recession, taxes, and the store’s inconvenient location on a side street nearly under the Dan Ryan and across the street from a Metra/Amtrak viaduct all are reasons the business has struggled.

He said he tried to get his uncle and father to move the store to another location, but they didn’t want to do it. Zweifel said he’s been running the store since about 1989.

Big box stores like The Home Depot also have hurt, as has the expansion of McCormick Place, which he said took away some of the major area companies that often bought items from him.

“I’m paying the bills, but I can’t take care of the building,” Zweifel said.

The 57-year old hardware store owner, on the verge of becoming emotional, said it’s “upsetting” to him that he has to close, given how long his family has had a hardware business in the area.

Zweifel said he hopes he can find another independent hardware store that can use his experience.

He said his great-grandfather first sold the store to his grandfather in 1906 for $1,000. Others in the family weren’t too happy about that, and thought $1,000 was too little a price.

Dave Zweifel holds a picture of his grandfather and a customer in the family-owned hardware store on 25th and Wentworth, likely in the 1920s. (Credit: Bernie Tafoya/CBS)

Zweifel said, during the Great Depression, family lore has it that his uncle would get angry at his grandfather “for giving things away.”

He said sometime next month, he’ll close the store for a week, then re-open with all the signage up and discounts listed to try to sell as much merchandise as possible.

At one point, he had as many as 10 full and part-time employees, but he let the last employee go a year ago, and he said it’s been hard doing everything himself.

I’m a lifelong Chicagoan and could never see myself living anywhere else (except maybe Hawaii!).
I was born on the North Side in 1958 but have lived all but the first three months of my life on the South Side. That said, thank (or is that curse?)...